A New View of the Coupling of the Sun and the Heliosphere

Abstract

The structure of the global heliospheric field reflects the physical properties of the low corona. The implied connections between solar and heliospheric evolution have been analyzed by a powerful multisatellite solar and heliospheric observatory that includes the Ulysses and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. This coordinated investigation yielded unprecedented observational opportunities. Some of these results confirmed predictions by models based on time-stationary conditions of the corona at its lowest energy state. However, there are results that exhibit important contradictions to these models, and limit their applicability, pointing to the importance of photospheric dynamics and small-scale field emergence for the structure of the heliospheric field. The interpretation of these data provides challenges to our understanding of the physics of the energy transport from the convective layers of the Sun into the heliosphere and motivates new theoretical approaches to the evolution of the heliospheric field.